


Claim the Darkness

by Oparu



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Drift Compatibility, F/M, Philinda AU Challenge, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2334767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melinda May was one of the heroes of the Jaeger programme, until she lost her co-pilot. Phil Coulson fought with the Avenger class Jaegers, holding the Kaiju back with a group of pilots worshipped like rock stars. </p><p>Then he was dead, and she was alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claim the Darkness

Only children were rare in the Jaeger programme. Those with siblings were usually more drift compatible. Maybe because they had so many shared experiences, or perhaps because they’d spent their whole lives sharing already. Melinda May knew she was a wild card going in, and that had never stopped her. Her mother had been one of the Mark One pilots. Big, heavy machines that moved like stone titans. The first of China’s Jaegers were a pair: Golden Dragon and Silver Phoenix. Golden Dragon had gone out with a bang in his first fight, but the Phoenix lived on, defending the southern coast fight after fight. Her mother had done that. Gone back into that Jaeger time after time, even when they realised how much radiation the Jaeger pilots where exposed to.

Her father died in combat, his neural net overloading when a Kaiju had destroyed his half of the Jaeger. Her mother had seen her accepted to the ranger training programme, and died quickly of a hundred tiny cancers in the weeks that followed. She’d trained to be a ranger alone. Fought alone, and worked alone for so long that the idea of drifting, of sharing her mind, seemed as alien as the creatures crawling up from the sea. So she ignored that. Her parents had met in ranger training. She was meant to fight in a Jaeger and the other half of her team would appear at some point. She was patient.

The people around her paired off. Finding their partners happened, one after another. She found her partner and they fought. They dropped, they drifted and they killed. She shared her mind and instead of bringing pain, she found safety and peace. She wasn’t alone.

Then she was. A Kaiju rose called Bitter Rain. Hundreds of thousands died, but she was alone and that’s the part that stung. That was the part she struggled to live with: all the death she could have prevented if she’d been faster.

They were fast together.

Been stronger.

They were strong together.

Been better.

How could she have been better than that? She had her partner, she was whole. They were everything and they lost.

Then she was alone. She couldn’t fight alone. Melinda retired from active duty; did paperwork for the Pan Pacific Defence Corp in a dark little basement office of the Shatterdome. It didn’t matter. She could do this, protect the world this way. Even if it was simply moving titanium and making sure resources were allocated. She wasn’t going to share again. She’d shared once, and that was enough. She’d heard death, felt it, lived with it as part of her. No one wanted to be part of that. No one could understand that. No one should.

Coulson understood that. He got it. He never pushed her to go back out there. She ached that he kept fighting, because she knew that Jaeger pilots had a short lifespan and one day he wasn’t going to come back. That was what happened. That was the price they paid to keep the Kaiju back. They paid in blood and pain.

Then he went missing. His Jaeger destroyed, his co-pilot dead, and his body nowhere to be found. She saw the darkness then, reaching for her, tracing her thoughts with fingers of ink.

Fury found him, and no one asked how. Coulson was back. He’d been to Tahiti, to recover, and Fury wanted her to drift with him because he didn’t trust anyone else. She knew what T.A.H.I.T.I. really was. How it Fury had allowed their scientists to use Kaiju DNA to heal dead pilots. They could build more Jaegers, but drift compatible pilots were hard to come by. They didn’t dare lose Coulson. Not when the Avengers class of Jaeger were the last thing between most of the nations along the Pacific and total panic. Romanov, Rogers, Barton and the others were the beating hearts inside the Avengers class of Jaegers. They made metal into angels of mercy.

Coulson had been with Nathan, piloting Symphony X, an Avenger class with impressive weaponry. They hadn’t been together long, but they worked. Everyone spoke well of them. Fury was pleased. Then Nathan died. The Kaiju, Loki, split the heart of Symphony, laying her workings bare on the beach. Nathan couldn’t be saved, but somehow, Fury had brought Coulson back.

Maybe they were the right fit after all. Her last drift had been death. She knew death. Had felt it creep into the corners of her mind as it took her partner. Death haunted her, reached for her, caressed her thoughts. Her darkness and Coulson’s would overwhelm each other.

Fury was a madman. The defence corp was desperate. Humanity was dying. Clinging to life as she had when she’d finished Bitter Rain alone.

Suiting up, Melinda tried not to think of the way Coulson smiled when he wanted her to laugh. She’d known him too long. Let him patch up too many of her injuries not to know him. Was this him? Had the Kaiju changed him? Was he standing in front of her just so she could lose him again? He’d been her best friend. Her confidant when she didn’t trust the words in her head to make any sense.

Or not to frighten.

Coulson didn’t scare easily. Would he jump when he saw her darkness? Could she handle his? His drift had been severed before Nathan died. He’d loved her. They’d been happy. They’d made a good team.

Melinda had been part of a good team.

Once.

This was a team of desperation. This was a last dance, a final charge and Fury knew it when they named the Jaeger. Cavalry Black. Only after she’d agreed to pilot it, when she’d let Fury drag her from retirement because Coulson needed her, then she’d learned the Jaeger’s name. She’d destroyed Bitter Rain after she’d lost her partner. She’d spent the last half of that fight alone, holding the whole Jaeger together with what remained of her sanity.

Not much.

They called her the Cavalry. She’d arrived and turned the tide. Stained the beach with Kaiju blue. Rode in like a hero and lost the other half of herself.

Fury said the Jaeger was for Coulson. He wanted him back in the field. Needed him. They needed people who could fight without becoming monsters, who kept their hearts bright. He hadn’t told her the name. He called it the Bus. So did Coulson. Only when she was already in her uniform, already half-way back to being a pilot, did anyone mention that this Jaeger was the literal embodiment of the nickname she hated.

She didn’t deserve it. She’d brought death. She was no saviour. She’d been late, not strong enough, not fast enough, not— Not alone. She hadn’t been enough to hold it back alone. She won, but there was as much human blood in the surf than there was Kaiju.

Coulson stood at her left, fidgeting with his helmet. He was a different man in his flight suit. A stronger one. She didn’t see death on his face, but it was there. He knew it, and she would. There was no point to small talk. They were moments away from being each other, sharing their souls, what words could possibly be necessary?

"Fury was right, you know."

She turned her head towards him, waiting.

"It’s a really nice Bus."

She smiled, because after Fury, Coulson had come to ask her to drive the Bus with him. He knew they’d be compatible. They’d always been so close. So synced. If they hadn’t already had partners, they would have fit years ago. She’d had someone else, and so had he. The path had been long and the woods dark.

He grinned back. “Isn’t this better than red tape?”

The warning lights spun up. The voice in their helmets warned them to prepare for the drift. Everything teetered on this. If they were compatible, they could put Fury’s Shield plan on the ground in a few days. If they weren’t, the search would continue.

Everyone expected them to fit. Coulson, Fury, Romanov— everyone who knew them, thought they’d slot together like two halves finally whole. They didn’t know Melinda’s darkness, or Coulson’s. How could they?

"I’m sorry," she murmured just before the drift.

"Sorry?"

"I should have let you in sooner," she whispered and shut her eyes.

Coulson’s mind came for hers: darkness for darkness, but light for light. She saw Audrey has Phil had seen her. Loved her, as he had. She drove that damn car of his down the empty highway, before the Kaiju, when the roads went on forever. He trained with her mother. Swung his arms into the forms of tai chi beneath the starry sky. His heart thudded separate from hers, once, twice, then they merged.

And again, she was whole.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to leave Melinda's former partner vague so it could be the person she married (assuming it wasn't Phil) and because that person wasn't as important as her and how she felt.


End file.
